The woman I planned to spend the rest of my life with.
Until her car went off the road during an ice storm.”
Claire’s hands tightened around mine. She blinked fast, but a single tear traced down her cheek.
“It left a hole in me. A big, empty one.
For a long time, I just… existed. I was just going through the motions. I was a ghost in my own life.
She loved to cook. So I started cooking. It was the only way I knew to feel close to her again.”
I looked down at our hands, my thumbs absently tracing over her knuckles.
“But now… now I realize I don’t just want to cook. I want to share the meal. With someone who challenges me. Someone who teases me about my basil.” A faint, tired smile touched my lips, and I saw one flicker across hers in return. “Someone I can just sit quietly with.”
I looked up, holding her gaze again, squeezing her hands a little tighter.
“I want to share all that with you, Claire.”
My gaze cut to the skyline behind her, to the lights starting to glitter in the dusk.
And when I see you packing… it feels like losing all over again.
It’s why I haven’t been home much. It hurts too much to be here, knowing you’re already halfway out the door.”
Now she knew. Everything. The whole truth. Out in the open where I couldn’t take it back.
My shoulders slumped forward, the fight draining out of me. I just stared at our joined hands, waiting.
“You’ve been so distant,” she whispered.
My head snapped up. Her eyes were glistening, searching mine.
“I thought…” she swallowed. “When you started spending more time out of the apartment, and stopped speaking to me in the morning… I thought you regretted letting me stay here.”
My silence. My disappearing acts. I’d made her think she was a burden.
She pulled one hand from mine. Her fingers came up to my cheek. Her thumb brushed my cheek, with a soft, slow stroke. I leaned into it, my eyes shutting.
“I started looking for apartments because this was supposed to be temporary.
And then you stopped being around. I thought I’d overstayed my welcome. That you were being polite, waiting for me to take thehint. I thought if I told you I was looking you might have felt obligated to tell me it’s okay to stay.”
I was so worked up over her leaving that I made it easier for her to leave.
I brought my hand up, covering hers where it rested on my cheek, holding it there.
I opened my eyes. Her eyes, that warm honey-brown I watched every morning over coffee, were fixed on me.
“But that’s not the only reason I didn’t tell you I was looking,” she said, her voice low.
“Telling you I was looking… it would have been me saying this was over. Just a temporary arrangement that ran its course.”
My thumb moved over her knuckles. I didn’t speak. I just listened.
“That I was just your roommate. And that I was moving on.”
I brought her hand down from my cheek, lacing our fingers together again. I held on.
